Thursday, October 27, 2011

Harvest Fest 2011

On October 27th, 300 high school and middle school students from Santa Cruz to Watsonville came to "Food, What?!" for a morning of fall farm activities and food justice education: pumpkin carving, cider pressing, hay rides, mini apple pies, farm fresh pizzas, food justice wall, "the hydration station", a fair trade and food miles workshop, a skit about healthy decision making and more. See the video and great press below to get a feel of the day.

And some press from the day

Edible Monterey Bay“You get to experience food you’ve grown and cooked yourself,” says Jacques Jackson, a 17-year-old high school senior who wants to study culinary arts at Cabrillo College next year. “I’ve learned how to cook, what’s in my food, what’s healthier for my body, and what will fill me up more.”Jackson’s job this fall has been to co-manage the FoodWhat flower business. This involves harvesting flowers and arranging bouquets that are bought each week by local businesses and restaurants and sold at the FoodWhat farm stand at Gault Elementary School.

Hub Pages nice photos and a video of FoodWhat youth reciting spoken word on his FoodWhat experience.“I used to smoke,” Salvadore said. “I used to drink. I worked here, I started thinking outside the box. People…who didn’t have a backyard to grow their own food…came up to me and asked me for vegetables and stuff. I’m the man.”

Santa Cruz SentinelStudents also were able sample different varieties of apples, or most popular, fresh veggie pizzas wood-fired by Jamie Smith, Santa Cruz City School's director of food services. With a hot fire, Smith churned out pizzas in the farm's outdoor oven, using squash, peppers, beet, and other fresh organic vegetable. Hands grabbed for slices before he even finished cutting them.